Oswald Pereira has over 30 years of experience as a journalist. Oswald teaches journalism to post-graduate students and has taught at the Times of India-owned Times School of Journalism. He is also an English language trainer for corporates. The Newsroom Mafia is Oswald’s debut novel. He lives with his wife and son in Noida.

Ronald Malfi is an award-winning novelist and short fiction writer whose most notable works include the novels Via Dolorosa and Shamrock Alley. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and collections throughout the US and abroad. Most recognized for his haunting, literary style and memorable characters, Malfi writes fiction that transcends genres to gain wider acceptance among readers of quality literature. He resides in Maryland with his wife, Debra.

Chinmayi Bali, a closet writer for long, finally came out when her poem Monsoon Triptych was adjudged a first prize winner in Golden Quill’s Monsoon Writing Contest. She currently writes for two online magazines - Helter Skelter and Epic India - and is working on her book of vignettes. She lives in Jaipur and hopes to see her writing transformed on the big screen someday.

Vibha Batra is a copywriter by profession and fiction writer by passion. Her literary pursuits took off when she translated her grandfather Late Shri Vishnu Kant Shastri’s book on the Ishaavaasya Upanishad. It was published by Rupa and Co in 2007 and well received by the literary world. A collection of satirical poetry titled Tongue in Cheek soon followed. She released a collection of short stories called ‘A Twist of Lime’. Her work has been anthologised in Vanilla Desires, Just Plain Bad Luck, Ripples, Indian Voices, Happy Birthday to Me, and the Chicken Soup series. She won the ‘Remix, Retell and Rejoice with Chuskit’ Contest held by Pratham Books and Conde Nast Traveller’s Travelogue Contest earlier this year.

Ranjani Iyer

Ranjani Iyer is a practicing Dental Surgeon in Chennai. Born the youngest of three girls to a Naval officer, Ranjani was shifted to a different school every 3 years. She finally finished her schooling in Vasco Da Gama, Goa. She graduated from the Madras Dental College, Chennai and went on to do her post graduation in Maxillofacial Surgery from the same college.
She is married to Dr Arumugam, also a Maxillofacial Surgeon. They have two sons, Siddarth and Rohit. They live in Chennai with their dogs, Mishti and Coco and their cats, Sushi and Sashimi.

Abhijit Bhaduri

Abhijit Bhaduri works as the Chief Learning Officer for the Wipro group. He lives in Bangalore, India. Prior to this he led HR teams at Microsoft, PepsiCo, Colgate and Tata Steel and worked in India, SE Asia and US. He is on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s prestigious program for Chief Learning Officers that is run by the University of Pennsylvania. Mediocre But Arrogant was his debut novel which was followed by a second novel titled Married But Available published by Harper Collins. Both books have gone on to be on several bestseller lists.

Rohini Kejriwal is an aspiring writer/poet and has been an avid blogger for the last four years. She is the Editor of TheTossedSalad.com, a Pune-based lifestyle web portal. Rohini enjoys exploring life and all that it has to offer, be it through different music artists, mountain trails, or film genres.

Aashish Mehrotra is a film writer and producer who also writes short stories in his spare time. He started working as an asst. director for a TV show at the age of 16, during the summer holidays. He went on to complete his Bachelor in Mass Media from Jai Hind College and majored in advertising. After his graduation, he dove head first into filmmaking, assisting cameramen, directors and working in the production department, wanting to gain knowledge in every aspect of film making. He is currently an associate producer on a film which will soon go on floors.

Nikhil Rajagopalan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from VIT University and a Master’s degree in Bioscience (Infection and Immunity) from the University of Leeds, UK. He has been writing flash fiction on his blog since 2008. His work has appeared on online publications like Wufniks and Nanoism and has also been featured at IIT- Roorkee’s Blogomania 2010. When he isn’t writing, he can be found sketching or hidden away in a corner reading a novel. Nikhil currently resides in Chennai.

Kunal grew up in Raipur, resides in Hyderabad and has been blogging
for over 6 years at kunal.wordpress.com. Kunal loves getting lost
in a sea of words, be it writing or reading. He observes people around
him and weaves stories about their lives. A software professional,
he enjoys traveling and photography, but believes his true calling
lies in writing.

A Pune - based copywriter - journalist - subeditor – content developer and a commercial pilot license holder, Sonia Safri is a voracious reader and an ardent lover of music. Her passion for ideating and creating quirky (and sometimes serious) tag lines saw her begin her career as a copywriter with some of Pune’s top ad agencies. She moved on to freelance as a features writer for Times of India’s Pune supplements, and Pune’s weekly entertainment tabloid- Entertainment Unlimited. Currently associated with www.bookchums.com, this self- confessed coffee addict writes book reviews, short stories and travels around the country.

Sneh Thakur is a Brand Manager who earned her ‘creative license’ after selling candy on the streets of Howrah, connecting over 1500 distributors digitally through strategic projects (not facebook) and dazzling management with her skills for crunching tough numbers.
Born in Kuwait, she travelled her way from refugee camps during the Kuwait war to study in DehraDun, Delhi, Indore and finally an MBA at the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune. After 6 years in FMCG in India, including several ‘Business Excellence Awards’ and work on product innovation with GSK Consumer Healthcare, she now lives in Muscat where she writes by the beach and photographs the mountains. She describes herself best in 6 words, “Pint Sized Rapunzel. On a Cloud.”
She is the Editor of Urban Shots - The Love Collection.

Ira Trivedi

Ira Trivedi is the author of the best-selling novels “There is No
Love on Wall Street (Penguin 2011), “What Would You Do to Save The World?” (Penguin 2006) and “The Great Indian Love Story” (Penguin 2009). Her books have been translated into several regional languages and met by critical and public acclaim. She holds a MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Economics from Wellesley College.

Sahil Khan

Sahil Khan is a lifestyle activist, foodie, music lover and designer. Though agnostic, he likes to believe
that he is an experiment of God.He runs an online magazine, TheTossedSalad.com, and an egg specialty
restaurant, Yolkshire. He is also a food columnist for Mid-Day.

Writer-journalist Bishwanath Ghosh grew up in Kanpur, worked in Delhi for several years and now lives in Chennai, where he is an assistant editor with Times of India. He is an accomplished travel writer and his debut book, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off, released in October 2009, became a bestseller and earned admiring reviews. He is currently working on his second book, a portrait of Chennai, which is scheduled for publication in early 2011.

Paritosh Uttam is a Pune-based software engineer. He holds a Bachelors
degree from IIT Madras and a Masters from IISc Bangalore. Apart from writing and reading
modern literary fiction, he is enthused by internet routing protocols, web search-engine optimization techniques,
Nifty and mutual funds, crosswords and anagrams, cricket and table tennis. Several of his short stories have been published in various magazines, newspapers and e-zines.

Vrinda Baliga lives in Hyderabad. Her short stories have appeared in various literary journals and
magazines like Temenos, flashquake, The Shine Journal, Long Story Short, Rose & Thorn and Cezanne's
Carrot. She is a prizewinner in the Katha Fiction Contest 2010 organized by India Currents.

Kainaz Motivala is an upcoming Indian film actress and model. She recently appeared in two
films, ‘Wake Up Sid’ and ‘Paathshaala’ and her performance in both was well-received. She has also
appeared in a number of commercials for Mc Donalds, Uninor, Sony Pix and Videocon, among others.
Kainaz is passionate about writing, and is a former journalist. She has had stints with The Express Group
and The Times Group and was a features writer with Hair Magazine before her foray into films as an
actor.

She always had a liking for the performing arts, having trained under Shiamak
Davar for six years. Apart from acting and dancing, Kainaz enjoys
reading and spending time with her canine friends. In her spare time,
she volunteers at the Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD). She speaks English,
Hindi, German , Gujarati, French and Marathi.

Ahmed Faiyaz grew up in Bangalore and now lives in Dubai. He’s a strategist by profession, with a number of years in Management Consulting behind him. He’s a book and film addict, and apart from reading books and watching cinema of all genres, he is a passionate writer. His first book, Love, life & all that jazz..., published in April 2010 is a popular bestseller across major cities. Grey Oak has recently released, Another Chance – Miles Apart his second, bestselling full- length novel, and has contributed stories to the bestselling Urban Shots. He enjoys long getaways in the mountains or to secluded beaches, where he reads a book a day. He is also one of the founding members of Grey Oak Publishers and reviews books for Asian Age, Helter Skelter and The Tossed Salad.
Ahmed has recently released, Scammed - Confessions of a Confused Accountant, which is among the top new releases nationwide, and has edited the soon to be released, Urban Shots - Crossroads.

Malathi Jaikumar, a Chennai based freelance writer, was earlier senior sub-editor/ chief sub-editor,
Indian Express, Delhi; Deputy Head Press and Public Affairs, British High Commission, New Delhi and
was awarded the MBE. After retirement worked briefly as Communications Consultant for UNDP doing
Post Tsunami advocacy work. Awarded first prize in the Femina All India Short Story Competition and in
Drafting Competition for Locally Engaged Staff in British Missions worldwide.

Prateek doles out advices to multinational corporations as a profession
and generally expects to be paid for them. Apart from his full time job in the consulting Industry
he dabbles in writing fiction and nonfiction for newspapers, magazines and his blog. An avid reader
and writer by passion, a social media junkie, and a technology enthusiast; he has lived in across different cities in India during his consulting stint and is now based out of Bangalore.

The author believes in weirdness as a state of normalcy. He takes
keen interest in writing – not only in his spare time, but by making
some time for it, everyday. From prose to poetry (of late), rants
to reviews and the likes – he does enjoy other things such as good
food, better movies and the best music (read Lennon).

He is the Editor of the TheTossedSalad.com, Pune where he tries to
promote lifestyle activism.

Abha Iyengar is a poet and writer. Her work has appeared in Mannequin Envy, Muse India, Bewildering Stories, Up the Staircase, Danse Macabre, The Fabulist and many others. Her story, ‘The High Stool’ was nominated for the Story South Million Writers Award. Her poem-film, “Parwaaz”, has won a Special Jury prize in Patras, Greece. She has a published poetry collection titled, “Yearnings”. Her stories have most recently been selected for A Rainbow Feast: New Asian Short Stories, The Asian Writer, Vaani and The Unisun-Reliance Time Out anthologies. She has received the Lavanya Sankaran Writing Fellowship for 2009-2010.

Aseem grew up in Muscat and after moving across South India for a few years, he is currently in the final year of his MBA at Pune. He has worked on digital media projects for HCL Ltd and Silicon India among others, done quite a bit of professional blogging and has also written a few short stories. He is currently working on his first novel. Besides writing, he enjoys reading and music.

Hasmita sometimes wishes she could live in a fictional world, and she does, through the stories she reads and writes. She inhabits the real
world in Mumbai, where she writes, edits and conducts creative writing workshops. Her writing has travelled
wider than she has, published in seven countries and online, over the last decade.

William Jablonsky is originally from Rock Falls, Illinois, and is a graduate of Bowling Green State University’s creative writing program. His first book, a collection of short fiction titled The Indestructible Man, was published by Livingston Press in 2005. His stories have appeared in many nationally distributed literary journals, including the Beloit Fiction Journal, the Florida Review, the Southern Humanities Review, and Phoebe. After a seven-year stint in the Milwaukee area, he now lives in Iowa with his wife and three cats and teaches fiction writing at Loras College.